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Instagram comes up with a money filter

Instagram is adding a monetization filter to its precious photo-sharing service. In a change to its privacy policy that has everyone in my Twitter feed freaking out, Instagram has given itself the right to lease users' names, likenesses and photos out to advertisers. That means the Kelvin-filtered photo of your polished finger nails might wind up being used by the responsible salon; or that the craft cocktail bar where you Hefe-filtered your Chewbacca Jacuzzi may throw it into an ad; or that the vintage market where you Walden-filtered that top-hat-wearing boar's head might pay to promote it.

The change comes on the heels of corporate owner Facebook giving itself the right to dip into the data Instagram has on its users, which means Instagram's photos will start being fed into Facebook's well-oiled advertising platform.

[Y]ou hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, except that you can control who can view certain of your Content and activities on the Service...

In other words, Instagram recognizes that it shouldn't screw over users who have private accounts by using their photos in ads aimed at the general public (though they can put them in ads aimed at your friends).

Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

It's almost flattering: your grams are worth paying for. You are as good a photographer as you imagine yourself to be as you take that smartphone snap and choose the perfect filter to highlight the exquisite texture of the home-whipped cream you just applied to your bounty of winter fruits. It's just that you're not the one who gets paid for the right to use the photo.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it's a page from the Facebook book. It sounds like Instagram is planning something along the lines of "Sponsored Stories." So if you go into a business and gram your experience, the business can use the gram in ads, probably targeted at your friends to encourage them to do the same. The fact that Instagram grants itself the right to use metadata is significant -- that means it knows the exact location where a photo was taken, making it easy for businesses to know a photo was taken inside one of their fine establishments. A big question here is whether these ad campaigns will be limited to Instagram's (and Facebook's) platforms or if they will migrate outside of the Instabook ecosystem.

Let's be honest: Many of the photos on Instagram are perfect for this. A sample gram from my weekend: "Best bloody mary in D.C. At the Pig;" that's a Pig ad waiting to happen. Actually it's a Pig ad that already happened, but no one got paid for it. Most of us are already essentially packaging and advertising our experiences to our friends (as Joe Brown at Gizmodo makes clear); Instagram is wisely trying to make money off of it.

You acknowledge that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such.

The New York Times says that the changes go into effect January 16. And there's no opting out. Some journos are offering people other photo-sharing options if they're planning to pack up their filters and flee Instagram. But I somehow doubt there will be an exodus. As one of my editors put it, the "threshold of outrage" is high these days, thanks in part to Facebook's constant pokes and prods to do more to monetize our personal data, accepting the privacy pains as the cost of "free" services.

But perhaps I'm wrong. Tell me -- and be honest -- is Instagram's plan to sell you out going to push you to leave the service? Twitter has filter options now after all.